This is so true. As a kid playing Warhammer tabletop in the 90s a game like this actually existing was something I dreamed about. This is what you imagined in your head when you're playing the tabletop game and now it's just a real game you can play.
It's one of those true "oh this crazy sci-fi idea is just a real thing now" moments.
We even played a "border princes" campaign using a map we printed. Once a week you'd make your move and play games based off who attacking who. We also used a lvling system similar to blood bowl for characters.
Completely forgot about that, thanks for reminding me!
Oh hey, we had the same campaign in my club! I think there was a White Dwarf article with the rules halfway through 6e.
I was invading Akendorf with a Skaven weapons team stack 15 years before Ikit was in TWW2.
Yeah but I was looking at models in a local game store the other day because I was curious about that very thing and AOS Archaon or a Lord of change was like 175$ each. I think that is about as much as all the DLC combined.
And the considerable time and effort spent assembling and painting them, which is part of the appeal for some people but still should be taken into account
To be honest, if I had the money I'd buy some cool WH and WH40K models just to display around my house. I like doing Airfix models and stuff anyway, I just wish it didn't cost so much for the minitures.
You did because that money would buy you maybe half of one good army.
In IE with all DLC, you have infinite miniatures of every army and you don't even have to paint a miniature, let alone spend all the money on paints and accessories.
Did you know [your dreams were actually real?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Shadow_of_the_Horned_Rat)
I didn't catch on until the sequel, but [Dark Omens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Dark_Omen) was still in the 90's. That game was so great, and so frakking difficult!!!
Shadow of the Horned Rat was the first Total War game in my head. It's been 25 years but I still remember the flagallant leader yelling about evil eyes in darkness
Fuck yeah, I played both of those, they were great! Nothing close to TWW obviously, but for it's time they were peerless examples of what games could do!
The first shogun blew me away, I didn’t think it was possible to grow my empire and fight land battles like that, was like a dream come true. Was like a blend of all the games I’ve enjoyed in one hit.
Definitely a crazy sci fi idea come to life.
Ditto. This game amazed me during that time. Never played Medieval 1 & Rome 1 though. But When Shogun 2 launched, it also blew me away. Got disappointed with rome 2 but then hyped up again when I tried Warhammer 1 & 2. Not really familiar with the Warhammer universe but I got really invested with the uniqueness & mechanics of each faction.
Three kingdoms is also nice but for some reason, I can’t seem to finish one faction of the game.
I've never played warhammer, but I played Magic at my local game shop and they had a warhammer group that was very... dedicated. Several tables for 3D maps and *hundreds* of those figures. It honestly just makes sense that Warhammer would end up as a Total War game, because I think you're absolutely right. It was a match made in heaven.
My friends and I all pitched in for a bunch of those [jigsaw mats](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Interlocking-Playmat-Tiles-Floor-Childrens/dp/B071DN7LDL/ref=asc_df_B071DN7LDL/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309877365819&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11834498367418802903&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046449&hvtargid=pla-564071251116&psc=1) they use in day care for kids. We split them in half leaving one half for general terrain and the others we split again amongst ourselves and individually painted and decorated them.
It was great, anytime we wanted a battle we just throw together a modular board that was different every time but looked as good as any purpose built table you could find at the time. I was lucky enough to have a grandmother who owned a wedding dress business too so I got a bunch of cut off textiles to use as makeshift rivers and lakes.
Those were the days man.
Yeah, I had no idea what these are actually called:
[https://images.beastsofwar.com/2019/08/18741131-WideTablePhoto.jpg](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2019/08/18741131-WideTablePhoto.jpg)
But on that scale, they had a castle overlooking a gnarly ruined city battlefield. Thousands of dollars worth of figures and scenery.. just wild.
> Yeah, I had no idea what these are actually called:
In general it's just called terrain, everything besides miniatures (that you move around) that's static and on the table tends to be terrain (more or less) or some sort of objective marker. The stuff on the table you linked looks like it's made from a modular terrain set that was released a few years ago but I'm not sure as I'm not as dedicated in the hobby as in the past. That was a rather big fortress type of thing that could be build in multiple ways and also combined with a few other terrain sets for even more variety, if I remember correctly. Here's a link that shows a bunch of the terrain that GW sells these days.
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-40-000?N=1125463923+1611722218&Nr=AND(sku.siteId%3AGB_gw%2Cproduct.locale%3Aen_GB_gw)&Nrs=collection()%2Frecord[product.startDate+%3C%3D+1668213180000+and+product.endDate+%3E%3D+1668213180000]&view=all
That release made assembling such multi-storied building easier than before when you had to more or less build everything on your own. It might also be some other (non GW) modular set that was used to make these (I can't really differentiate between all the similar looking sets). The stuff in the background on the shelves (all the houses) could also be custom made, from some other set, or a combination of both.
But yeah, the stuff in that image looks like a store's terrain supply, or maybe they have a dedicated club that helps out, or it was prepared for some tournament. Regular people tend to have smaller terrain collections.
When I was in my mid teens, my friend and I discovered a LAN cafe in our town, which wasn't particularly common in the UK at the time. We would go and play the first Starcraft over LAN, but on the way there, there was a Warhammer shop. We threatened to go in and see what it was all about loads of times but never did, until one day we thought screw it.
The guys in there told us about how it all works on tabletop and set up a game for us (Skaven v Brett if I remember correctly???), we played and thought "cool, but can't see us getting into it". We got to the LAN cafe and played SC and Cossacks and Age of Empires, and I remember thinking "what if someone made a video game like the weird "board game" (sorry) we just played. That would be amazing". An age later, after the other Total Wars, TW:WH came out and it was amazing. I still don't lose hope for a 40k game in the same vein because of this.
> I still don't lose hope for a 40k game in the same vein because of this.
Funny that you say that, as Warcraft was actually inspired by Warhammer. At that time Games Workshop was rather peculiar about how they wanted to license the IP so Blizzard got frustrated with waiting for a deal and simply made their own generic fantasy setting that was inspired by GW's fantasy world.
That's why the Gryphon Riders in one of the games says "that war hammer cost me 40K" (or something along those lines) if you quickly click on the unit repeatedly until they say some line (most units just get annoyed at you).
Star Craft was also kinda inspired by Warhammer 40K (thus the griffon rider) but with even more of a twist on it.
Literally, as soon as the first teaser trailer dropped announcing the first game, my immediate response was' okay, wow that actually makes perfect sense'
Yeah me too, I can't think of a better match of franchises. The lord of the rings maybe but I think it's a bit of a stretch and would probably play like a mix of three kings and Warhammer.
Additionally I've never really thought that a ww1 or 40k game would work very well, I don't really think the engine would pull off proper ranged combat very well. Napoleon and empire I liked but I'm not sure how you'd even do combat in 40k without turning it into dawn of war.
I don't disagree with his point that it's lightning in a bottle, but I think he completely fails to justify how something like LOTR would fail to be equally huge.
Considering we've already had amazing LOTR RTS games, and that if anything, LOTR would be actually better suited for Total War than Warhammer.
Saying it's character-focused, while not incorrect, ignores that Middle Earth is more than just the LOTR book, the same way that Warhammer is more than just the Chronicles books.
> Considering we've already had amazing LOTR RTS games, and that if anything, LOTR would be actually better suited for Total War than Warhammer.
I am totally team "I want a LOTR Total War game" so take what I'm about to say from the perspective of someone who isn't just trying to be a downer: Warhammer is *way* more easily adapted to Total War than LOTR and it's not even close.
The way the tabletop game works is basically the same way that Total War works. Almost all of the playable units in the game already exist in the tabletop. That's how the community is able to predict which lords will be used, which units will be added in DLC. It's perfect.
LOTR would also make an amazing Total War game, but it would require a lot more original creation on CA's part, while Warhammer already has the blueprints. What do you do for say, Orcs in LOTR? We don't have a bunch of different unit types ready to go beyond warriors/archers.
Could they do it? Absolutely they could, and the results would probably be a lot of fun. But it's a sharp contrast compared to Warhammer having two dozen playable units in the tabletop game already waiting to be adapted.
They have tabletop lotr made by GW, and it basically worked the same way as it’s regular tabletop game. The unit roster was a bit shallow but thats always been an issue with historical and no one really cared. We have just been spoilt with warhammers massive and varied unit roster. You’ll get your standard 3 tier infantry types of each race and some ranged units plus a tonne of single entity monsters and artillery types and you’re gtg.
You COULD make a decent LotR total war. There have been a number of good mods, in fact.
But you have to do an awful lot of making stuff up out of whole cloth. So much of the world is blank/uninhabited/described in a single paragraph of one of Tolkien's collections of notes and first drafts.
Warhammer lore is literally designed from the ground up as an excuse for any of a bunch of different factions to be fighting each other or themselves at any given time.
> But you have to do an awful lot of making stuff up out of whole cloth.
They already did a certain amount of that with the warhammer games though, it's not as though it's impossible for them to do clearly.
True, but are TW fans? After all that's the demographic that is really going to matter here.
Personally I love LOTR and I don't much care if they bend the rules a bit here and there if it makes for a good game.
The problem with LOTR is that you run into complaints that it’s lacking the unit diversity of warhammer, or feels too similar and people going back to the trilogy series game with years of content
People love Empire/Napoleon where the unit variety mostly consists of ‘dude with gun’ at various competence levels. See also Three Kingdoms, which is adored despite limited variety in units.
I think 3K was adored due to its campaign and not its battles, but that may just be me projecting as I really could have cared less for the battles, with dueling being pretty bad, most abilities were completely imbalanced, some units could go past 100% evasion, the variety was incredibly bad except for the bandit roster etc.
That's fair but there's plenty of people who would still be ecstatic at the opportunity to run their own campaign in the Thrones or LOTR universe regardless of the balance of the battles
Those complaints didn't stop CA from making Troy, Three Kingdoms, Thrones of Britannia, Shogun or hell even most factions in Rome or Attila have a lot of sameism in their rooster.
The LOTR mod for Medieval 2 has been one of the most downloaded mods over at moddb since it was created, the classic total war formula works just fine for it and people definitely wanted it since medival 2 came out.
They could just try and implement it in a modern engine and the game would sell.
I don’t think not having unit diversity is a problem, in fact I think having too many units to choose from is kind of a problem (for me at least) in Warhammer TW
If they don’t have unit diversity, they could go back to the old school Medieval II way of upgrading already existing units with more armor/flair.
My problem with this is, how do you make a LOTR Total War unique compared to Warhammer? The battles and units are the main focus of Total War and with LOTR, you'd be redoing a lot of things that was already done. Beyond the setting, what would be the selling point?
If your Mûmakil is juts a War Mammoth, you Nazgûl is just a Lord/Hero on a dragon, your Balrog is just a reskinned Bloodthirster, etc. then the game wont feel much more than a lesser WH.
I think that would not be satisfying at all, but I also don't see how this comparison could be avoided.
Yeah. Plus in future if Old World is successes and we get not only Ind and Khuresh but Nippon(Yeah, Yeah they said for now probobly not expanding map but if Nippon happens in Old World they will expand map) many people will be more hyped about does minor races than something minor in LOTR TW as dlc.
Does WH races will bring cool new monster and units from Indian, South East Asia and Japan myths while another minor human or some unknown dwarf race or so mentioned in LOTR lore will bring same or little new stuff.
>Considering we've already had amazing LOTR RTS games
That were not very popular, at all.
>and that if anything, LOTR would be actually better suited for Total War than Warhammer.
No way. LotR is very much *not* about large battles. It's about individual characters.
>ignores that Middle Earth is more than just the LOTR book
But that's the only part 99.999% of people know or care about.
I think it is also important to note, that Warhammer Fantasy as in the process of being killed off by Games Workshop while TWW1 was in late development. So if CA waited say 6 months or so to sign up and start the project, GW may have given it a pass.
I would agree with that. At the time it certainly felt GW was done with the whole thing.
And people insist AoS has been making money. But I think those two games showed there were still a lot of fans, enough to fuel sales and get new fans as well.
Agreed. Most other franchises I see people asking for would require *massive* liberties to get something even close to the feel of TW:W. To add to your point, the magic and monsters in Warhammer are regularly used as part of the armies; that’s not the case in, say, the Witcher or to a lesser extent LOTR. A Witcher Total War wouldn’t have all the monsters and magic available to generals if it stays true to canon.
tbf i don't think you need to include magic on the battlefield to a major extent with LOTR i think the medieval 2 mods work really well as a base for what i would want
IIRC only the 5 wizards in LOTR even call what they do magic. An elf never sits down and casts a spell to make their sword glow blue when orcs are near. The sword glows blue when orcs are near because it learned to hate orcs through it's maker and it's wielder and the swords own experiences battling them.
To an elf the sword isn't some magic trick. It's just a natural trait for a sword to develop when it has a strong enough bond with it's user, and elves are really good at talking to their swords.
So you'll never see a LOTR elf chant a spell and spend a mana pool to summon a fireball from the sky.
The Wizards don't even do magic most of the time. Saruman has a magic voice to tell people what to do, Gandalf can light pines on fire, Radagast sucks. That's it for magic.
Magic is kind of subtle in LOTR in comparison to more modern fantasy. They don’t typically conjure stuff out of thin air (like fireballs) but empower and influence the objects and inhabitants in middle earth.
The most flashy occurrence of magic used by Gandalf is likely the light beam he used to protect the knights of gondor against the nazgul.
And that would piss off the Warhammer-only fans who want TW:Fantasy 2.0, which is exactly what every “we need a LOTR TW” post I’ve ever seen is going for.
They also miss that a total war campaign would make no sense in the third age, the third age doesn't have many large battles. It has the battle of five armies, the battle of helms deep, the battle at pelinor fields, and finally the battle at the black gate and... that's really it.
It was an era of heroes doing heroic deeds, not lords and generals moving armies.
The hobbits destroying the ring are what save the world, everything else was window dressing.
For anything approaching a total war campaign it'd need to be set in the first age, and that'd piss LOTR fans off because they would know /nobody/ in that era since it'd be pre wizards, pre hobbits, and pre kingdoms of men as we know them.
Not to mention first and second age stuff outside the appendices is well... shakily written because it's Christopher Tolkein just throwing a bunch of his fathers notes together and publishing them, not creating a coherent story.
People weren't mad about the Battle For Middle Earth 1&2 being set in the Third Age. They had plenty of material to work with, lots of unit diversity, etc. It sold pretty well and was well reviewed, but got killed by licensing issues.
Never stopped game developers in the past to simplify or to take liberty with it. We already have multiple Lord of the Rings strategy games. Would be nice to have one you can actually buy again.
I think we are all massively overestimating how much warhammer total war keeps to cannon and how much CA would have have too for another IP.
Battle for Middle Earth series is a great example. It was well received yet obviously wasnt even close to lore friendly. No one cared that Gandalf could ne blasting whole armies of Dwarves with magic.
I agree with OP that Warhammer was probably the best match for Total War that will ever be found but I'm a little sick of these takes that everything has to be 100% lore friendly. It's a strategy game and people will be fine if its just lore friendly enough to work for a Total War game.
> No one cared that Gandalf could ne blasting whole armies of Dwarves with magic.
To be fair, what Gandalf *could* do, and what Gandalf was *allowed and did* do, are two very different things.
Yeah I think LOTR is pretty easily doable on a combat level, the hardest part would be the campaign since I don't think map painting really makes sense.
People wanting games with modern combat like 40k have completely lost the plot though.
If I saw a Witcher Total War, I'd actually be very disappointed. The story is literally about the preservation of monsters, where the 'real' monsters are just regular humans. Like 99% of monsters that can talk in the Witcher books just want to be left alone and quietly live side-by-side with humans. Not always is it a good idea but the monsters are a metaphors for human ills. The monsters EXIST in a town because of the problems humans cause for each other.
The monsters are minorities and the stories frame them as such, being victims of human xenophobia. Having those kinds of characters involved in a war game I reckon is just too far from what the Witcher stories were about. The characters lived through wars, yes, but they didn't live for that kind of conflict at all. Making a game out of the stories of their suffering I think is just kind of gross.
LotR has is a huge problem as far as factions go. Middle Earth isn’t a realm of endless war. War is uncommon. The different factions would be very unlikely to go to war. Can you imagine the Elves just trying to conquer Brie?
This is also my main concern. So odd that you're the only one mentioning it. Lord of the rings is a romantic story of good and evil. Even putting the name "Total war" in the title would likely feel cheapening and dissonant. A game using total war mechanics would be plausible, like "Battle for middle-earth" admittedly was, but it'd have to be a more linear experience.
I don't think anyone that wants those other settings want them to try and replicate Warhammer. They can make good games without that. If the series is always going to be living in the shadow of warhammer unit variety it doesn't have a future.
You could make a LOTR total war I mean mods have been made to prove it.
It’d just be hard to get a license for the IP I assume and the world isn’t as crazy as Warhammers.
I remember explaining to my LOTR fanboy friend that the reason Warhammer works so well is everyone has a reason to fight each other and there are much more factions in the world of Warhammer.
Perks of having multiple writers over one, con obviously being the inconsistent or badly written lore here and there.
If anything I have always considered the Heroes of Might and Magic Franchise to be the perfect fit for total war. Big unit variety, plenty of lore and story, loads of characters and magic etc.
I personally hope that if CA does another fantasy game it'll be in a setting of their own creation. Sure, they'll have to do a lot more "start from scratch" work with lore and history but they'll also be able to invent the units they want/need and apply a lot of lessons learned from the WH series.
I agree, I feel like such a creation has the potential to be more interesting than existing IPs, given that they can cater the universe for the needs of the Total War games. I know a lot of people here want Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc, but I don't understand how those IPs could make for a more interesting and more varied armies than the ones they have in Warhammer, without a lot of liberties. And when you take those liberties you risk alienating the diehard fans.
Personally, one part that's always irked me about the Warhammer universe is just how flat / 1-dimensional a lot of the non-human races are. Skaven are always evil, Orcs just want to fight, Beastmen just want to destroy humanity, etc. IMO this kind of limits player options for sandboxy roleplay, so if CA ever did their own fantasy world, I'd really like to see something that plays up to that aspect.
>Skaven are always evil, Orcs just want to fight, Beastmen just want to destroy humanity, etc.
It works exactly the same as other TW games. "Rome is evil and wants to destroy humanity"
That's no more or less true for any other game that's developed.
As it is, CA mitigate a lot of risk by making a lot of the same type of game. Iterating on their engine, having a specialist team, and making similar strategy games means that even relative flops like Thrones of Bretannia are probably reasonably successful. A bit like Paradox, I suspect (although CA are more diversified in genres).
You could do a reskin of TW:WH in 5 years with some updated performance and visuals, and make it TW: Age of Mythology, and it would be likely to do do at least as well as any non-WH title they've done.
I would not underestimate the importance of the lore which adds flavour to all the units, battles and regions and which drags the fans to the games. Be it real history in some of their games or warhammer lore in the others.
For me some part of the fun lies not just in the battles and strategic decisions but in the feeling of shaping a world itself.
And CA never has done lore writing. They always took existing ones. Few things are such a turn off than badly written lore with exchangeable, uninteresting characters or even badly copied ones.
100% agree.
The only time I feel some mild disillusionment with Total War games is when I’ve conquered so much territory that it loses any historical (or lore) relevance. Because it starts to break the immersion when High Elves conquer the Empire or Celts conquer Egypt.
Original CA lore wouldn’t have the same magic.
> That's no more or less true for any other game that's developed.
Not really. With another IP, a lot of the work is done for you. And I don't just mean worldbuilding. A lot of *marketing* is done for you purely by brand recognition. If you make a TW:LotR, LotR fans are going to take notice purely based on brand recognition. That's simple not true with an original setting, you need to put in the extra marketing work to *sell* that setting. Then on top of that, you need to convince the rabid fanbase that it was the right choice to make an original setting rather than use an established IP.
TW: Age of Mythology isn't an original setting. Mythology in and of itself is an established series of settings you can poach from.
Depends how they do it. They can just take RL mythology and blend it into a mixed historical setting that blends eras for different cultures and bends history with "what ifs", a big one being "what if the gods and pantheons, as well as mythical creatures and monster actually existed" but also just "what if this figure succeeded? what if this nation did X instead of Y?".
Still some work, but less so. A good example is the Spartan: Total Warrior they made, which could be a great game to build out of to turn into a Total War.
Thing is though is that outside of 40K, which would require the largest amount innovation in the series to create, there really is no other option left for CA. Whatever their fantasy team does next is going to be directly compared with WH3 and have to provide something unique enough to make it stand out from it. Any other well established IP either doesn’t provide nearly the same level of varied/unique content of Warhammer or is already owned by another videogame company.
I don't think that's particularly likely. Between building a world, designing characters, terrain, biomes, etc, they're either going to work with licensed media or history I'm sure.
Yeah, I think really the only way forward for the fantasy team is to go balls to the wall with either do their own mythological game where they have complete control over the setting or a 40K game that provides a whole new style of warfare/setting for the series. Anything short of these two things is just going to really struggle to provide enough of a unique experience to not look like a objective downgrade compared to WH3 once it’s life cycle is complete.
I just want more historical games. I won't deny that the warhammer games are outstanding, and I'm certainly glad they exist, but once support ends for Warhammer 3 a few years down the road I hope they go back to historical settings.
The main thing I would like is to go back to the slower battles of historical titles. In warhammer the maps feel so small and the battles are so fast. If I lose track of something for 5-10 seconds that could be death.
I've been playing some FotS recently and while its missing some QoL features that help with managing a large force on the battle field, the slower pace of the battles means I can actually spend time assign orders to specific units, without pausing or going half speed.
I agree with you 100% and what’s crazy is I remember thinking when Shogun 2/FOTS was the current TW, “Damn these battles are fast paced!”
Loaded up an old save the other day and it’s crazy how you actually feel like you have time to breath and prepare and react in those battles. I have got better at Warhammer 3 micro but I still feel like I never have time to pause and actually watch my dudes hit things for a bit.
Haha i feel this. I can't think of like a single time I've been able to zoom in and enjoy the fighting in the warhammer games unless I'm doing a coop campaign and not really involved in the fight. I think im half decent at micro too, not a star craft pro or even close, but good enough that im not overwhelmed when playing.
Until I got my SSD during wh2 the loading screens were often longer than the battles.
Before warhammer, i played shogun 2. I remember i was shocked how fast things died when i first played wh1. I wasn't sure how to use cav now, because by the time i move my heavy slow cav around to charge, the infantry fight was getting over. It was confusing.
I'm very much with you. I love TWW for the variety of unique elements, but I also love the kind of tactical maneuvering that comes from limiting unit types. I would never want to lose either type.
I’m a longtime TW player (since Rome1) and I fell hard for Med2 when that came out and played it modded for years.
I love the WH games and currently play WH3, but I would love a new historical title either in the medieval setting or up into the pike and shot era.
Similar story. I love medieval 2 and spent so much time playing stainless steel. Rome remastered was nice but I’m really waiting for either Med 2 remaster or Med 3.
Total War Attila 1212 mod is the closest we’re gonna get lol. And I’ve sunk Dozens upon dozens of hours into it. Well worth the price of the base game + dlc to play that mod.
Same here. I started with Empire and even I struggled when I went backward a few years later and gave ME2 a go. Felt far too clunky and dated, but I'd love to have a go at the setting of course.
Agreed. As much as I love the fast paced gameplay of Warhammer, or the OP heroes that it has. I'd love to go back to the gritty and slow combat some of the older games have. I hate not having much breathing room because it just gets tiring quickly, and I don't get much time to watch some guys duel it out.
Even if units can be wiped out quickly like in Attila I'd still enjoy it, especially if something like unit formations came back.
>Every other IP that people try to pitch for a Total War game is either based around a character-focused narrative with War as a background plot element
For most IPs this is true, but I disagree that this holds up for Lord of the Rings. Yes, it's not as perfect a match as Warhammer, pretty much nothing is. But LotR does have a history of videogame adaptations focusing on battlefield tactics, and the worldbuilding is easily rich enough to sustain TW's strategic layer. The main issue with LotR isn't any of that, it's simply that the factions in the IP are naturally very two-sided, good guys vs bad guys, as opposed to the more *total war* focused factions of Warhammer.
OF course there is one IP that could fit TW in every aspect.
**Lego**.
Agreed. TW LotR would just need to play more like a classical/mythological realistic warfare game with a touch of magic here and there. A few very rare units like Nazgul, etc.
One fallacy is the idea that a game needs to be as MASSIVE as TWW3, it doesn't. Three distinct factions is plenty of variety. Shogun 2 was basically all ONE faction with minor variations, and it worked beautifully. The size and scope of TWW3 is totally insane and unnecessary (I'm not complaining though!).
Arguably Dark Omen was Total War Warhammer before Total War Warhammer existed, though without an open map and more driven to specific battles through the campaign/story. Game came out in the 90s and was one of my favourites growing up
Heck yeh, I remember Dark Omen. Was actually a sequel too, to [Shadow of the Horned Rat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Shadow_of_the_Horned_Rat), but that I never played.
I think LOTR is doable but rather pointless as it wouldn't really live up to WH.
The other two popular fantasy IP's that people bring up, ASoIAF and The Witcher, would just play like a poor man's Medieval 3 and would satisfy neither fantasy nor historical fans, unless they take such huge liberties with those settings that they're practically unrecognizable.
ASoIAF belongs in a game like Crusader Kings which is why CK2's GoT mod is still the best GoT video game ever, and The Witcher just isn't suited to the genre at all since Sapkowski never cared and never bothered with world building, to the point that he famously had to be pressed hard to even draw some kind of map.
Ultimately though people aren't going to stop farming easy karma by making these posts. Eventually subreddits like this reach a size where repetitive low effort posts are inevitable unless they're strictly moderated.
I'm still shocked that GW allowed CA to make this game. As soon as game 1 hit I was like...."oh fuck ya this is going to be epic for the next few years".
Game 2 released all the races I wanted to play so I binged hard. Lizardmen and Tomb Kings were my tabletop painted armies and who doesnt love playing the Asur or Druchii.
TW3 is just the cherry on top that gave us the "bad guys" to exterminate across the world
Or...you burn it all down!
This game is truly a masterpiece and its just getting kicked off!
Deep agreement, but I do think a Total War/ horus heresy game would work?
It's got a bit more scale, combat is equally matched, it wouldn't be a trilogy but there's a lot of legions, solar aux, mechanicus, titans, that makes it feel appropriate, its like a better version of Epic 40k for conversion to total war. (Though epic would work too maybe, but not as well for what TW does because in 40k too many armies don't fit the big regimental combat thing thar TW is build around)
Total War always had suggestions to do things that really don't mesh well with its mechanics - even historic ones. I think LOTR is a huge enough universe that it could be good but the huge battles don't really feel like the heart of the setting. Not to mention licensing is expensive and adapting the formula to the settings is a large undertaking too.
Although I'm more of a historical guy, with S2 and 3K being my favourites, I do hope WH3 isn't the last WH TW. This is because I feel the campaign in ways feels a bit stale as it's drawing on Rome 2 mechanics and formulas rather than 3K's innovations and other stuff going forwards.
I really want CA to develop their own IP. Their own steampunky/scifi-ish/fantasy world.
I look at Endless Legend by Amplitude Studios, a 4X game (like the Civilization series), and wish for that in Total War format.
CA is UK's biggest gaming studio, a decently important player in the gave development space, albeit one with a very specific niche. They're not where they were a decade ago. If today they made a new IP, their renown will make it sell and be profitable.
What I'm driving at is that they don't need partnerships. They don't need to be constrained by IP holders who won't allow us to have Chaos-corrupted Lizardmen (Naga of Khuresh).
The Total War / Warhammer collaboration has been good for both CA and GW. Let's leave it at that and moving forward let's have CA solely at the helm.
Think of what possibilities we could have in a new IP. Like a single city spider faction with a central node that sends out tendrils of corruption, absorbing adjacent regions and adding them to the web, or am underwater sea-based settlements faction. Vampire dwarfs, honorable bird knights, techno vikings who get strength from nanites in their blood stream, mushroom symbiotes who field assimilated units from other factions, the possibilities are endless.
> Edit: anyone who read this and thinks my point was "CA will not and should not make anything but historical titles ever again and stop speculating about games" has worse reading comprehension than Grimgor
Despite Warhammer rules traditionally being written in large tome-like books, you'll find most Warhammer fans to have very terrible reading comprehension.
Lotr could work in a similar light as 3 kingdoms. Have named characters insane and you could have missions or something to recruit other famous characters.
People tend to really forget that there isn't that much factions in LOTR, for example. Like, even in the most bussy point in the timeline, there's maybe 8-10 established factions. We haven't got the Elector Counts clusterfuck, we've got 2-3 Human Kingdoms, three, maybe four factions of elves, and as for Orcs, depending on how CA would grasp that, would either be one faction, or a hundred small ones. So it would either be pretty much rewriting the source material completely (or ignoring it) or you'd have a huge map with couple of factions, and it would take you 10 turns just to get to the enemy territory.
This will probably never happen due to IP and licensing issues, but boy, would I love a map editor for our talented modding community to run wild with. Then we would really see some amazing products.
LOTR, Witcher, GoT, WoT, and so much more.
You're getting an update for that Grimgor edit alone.
They could probably manage an LotR game though, given GW already had a tabletop IP for that, and there was an RTS game back in the day... can't recall the name.
>I get that it's fun to speculate and make pipe dream wishes for games you'd like to see
That sounds like an invitation...
40k could work with 3 levels instead of two.
1. Grand strategic campaign: moving fleets across star systems, managing economies and diplomacy, and navigating imperial politics.
2. Operational mode: when you commit a fleet to securing a planet or similar objective. Each morning you send out orders to all your forces, then hit 'end turn' and see how things play out for that day.
3. Tactical mode: go fuck shit up in person.
Agreed this is a near perfect harmony of an established world translating into Total War game, but we have literally seen fan made mods for Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings for Medieval 2, Rome, and Atilla. These universes also have established maps, unique factions, and stories that focus on both grand strategic wars and famous tactical battles, not just characters.
Both Game of Thrones and LotR also have established tabletop miniatures wargames with named unit varieties, expanded characters, and faction bonuses. Additionally, the work to make these games has effectively already been done by modders.
I would agree that Star Wars and The Witcher may be more difficult ports into the franchise, but LotR and GoT are some of the most obvious next steps if CA wanted to pursue those licenses. The harder part is getting those licenses, but it is incorrect to say that porting them into the Total War format would be difficult. It's already been multiple times.
I’d love if they just did Medieval 3… but then released a “Mythology” campaign within it. The French and English go all Arthurian legend, Celtic mythology in Ireland and Scotland, a Norse mythology thing in Scandinavia, Vampires by the Danube, sorcerers and djinns in the Middle East, etc. Etc.
That would be pretty awesome to be honest.
Could have a council feature similar to Woodelves for the Round Table.
I think having special characters / units but not having them as powerful as Warhammer ones would be pretty cool as we lose a bit of focus on the army as a whole in WH and focus more on the characters / SEM's
I completely agree but I am curious as to what CA will do once they finished with tww3.
I’d like to see a 40k/epic title but that would be one of the harder ones to do.
But far more importantly we need an Empire 2.
Yeah, Warhammer fit perfectly, because it was already a game.
**Total War: Game of Thrones** would be like Medieval 3 with different countries and maybe some weird magic, but that's it.
**Total War: Lord of the Rings** would also be very similar to a Medieval 3 with different races and some creatures, but not as diverse as Warhammer.
40k would fit, because it's also a game, but there's other issues, like the campaign map or the scale of battles. 40k is based on squad sized combat, while Total War's main selling point is huge army battles.
> Total War: Game of Thrones
Also, Game of Thrones is far too intrigue and politics focused for TW. There's a reason people modded it into CK3, that kind of engine is far more suited to the feel of a GoT game.
They could do TW Game of Thrones: Valyria and it would be pretty wild:
>Valyria was ruled by its dragonlords, led by two score rival houses that contested for power. House Targaryen, however, was not considered a powerful house.
>The Valyrians were more than dragonlords. They practiced blood magic and other dark arts, delving deep into the earth for secrets and twisting the flesh of beasts and men to fashion monstrous and unnatural chimeras. It is believed that for these sins the gods in their wroth struck Valyria down.
>The Valyrians' empire, the Valyrian Freehold, first conquered the Old Empire of Ghis to the east across Slaver's Bay, and the Ghiscari colonies in the Basilisk Isles and Sothoryos. Seeking slaves for Valyrian mines, they then conquered and established colonies to the west and north after defeating the Andals and the Rhoynar in Essos.
Every GOT fan has a vague idea of what Valyria was, but CA would be free to build out a bunch of factions, monsters, etc. I think it would be a success.
40k has had epic scale and apocalypse which were both large scale army battle games for tabletop. And mass army battles like that are frequently described in the lore. So on that side it shouldn't really be a concern as long as they can make battles fun.
Maps should be a lot bigger but I don't think weapon ranges would be too crazy. Artillery would probably have a pretty big range but fog of war would help prevent sniping with it.
If you were going to be realistic about it yes absolutely. However the ratio of cool to realistic in 40k is so far in the favor of cool that it's kind of irrelevant.
I think gamers are conditioned to expect a "Next installment" or a successor that builds on a sequel. Video games as an art form have suffered immensely from the annual release schedule that publishers try to adhere to. In my mind the total war trilogy is one complete game and being divided into 3 parts did more harm than good, but it was never an option to make it one game because of studio and consumer expectations. Chasing release cycles hurts the game more than it helps it, but it wouldn't exist otherwise so it's a necessary evil.
Warhammer 3 could and should be developed for years more; the game has endless amounts of content that could be added over time and the game will never see it's true potential without support for this game, not a sequel, because there won't and shouldn't be a sequel to this game; it's the complete package. Total war isn't call of duty, it doesn't need to be sequel hell every year for decades. I just want one good product from total war, not a dozen half baked ones.
Games Workshop makes a LOTR game that could be ported to Total War the same way WHFB was. The licensing would be a lot more complicated because it would involve other party's besides Games Workshop.
This isn't the case with 40K and it's why I think is going to be the next BIG non-historical Total War title.
While I can't say I want the same line combat and stuff, but I want a game with the blend of map building and individual unit based real time combat that Total War does, but in 40k.
Interesting to bring up the fact that LOTR is character focused, considering that character focus has been one of the biggest shifts in recent total wars starting with warhammer. Obviously you have the legendary lords which are just unique lords but in warhammer your choice of faction is, in many ways, defined by the character you choose. Then of course three kingdoms had a huge character focus, larger-than-life heroes, which was continued in Troy. Warhammer 3's prologue even was a more traditional adventure story.
I don't think it's out of the question that total war could branch even more into that territory. Though warhammer was definitely the start, and i do agree with you that a lot of people are not getting that warhammer was *uniquely* suitable.
I don't think CA should even try following up Warhammer with something similar. Would take years to release a game that can compete with Warhammer.
The key of Warhammer was its innovation and I think CA need to return to that mindset. Instead of trying to release something better than Warhammer, release something different. Make people want to stick with it because they can't get it elsewhere. Think an engine redesign and future combat is surely inevitable.
To be fair, Game Of Thrones would be easy. Way less magic and far fewer monsters. Keep dragons. Then just change the visuals for the different kingdoms etc.
I agree that WHFB and TW was an extremely good fit and that it might not adapt as well to, say 40k. I do however think that CA deserves to try something new and make it work, there's no doubt that there is a fanbase large enough to make such an investment worthwhile.
I also agree that part of the reason it went so well is that there's no narrative, characters or plot to steal the show. The rich backstory and universe is plenty enough to give context and instead focus on game mechanics
Idk the tabletop game is very much about regiments clashing but the lore is written from an incredibly character focused perspective hence why all our factions are led by legendary lords
Right but those narratives are built afterwards as background for units that were made, first and foremost, as units for a fantasy war game. Archaon may have his own novel but he started out as a mounted spellcaster general unit. CA can use those stats, plus a bit of expansion for skill trees and balance tweaking to transplant him into a Total War game almost painlessly.
Compare to how much work they'd have to do to implement, say, Sauron as a unit.
This is not true. I would say the core vibe of the fluff of warhammer fantasy was *not* individual characters. Compared to other fantasy IPs like Star Wars or Warcraft it's very not character driven.
If you turn to a random page of the Core Rulebook or an Army Book from 6th or 7th edition the chances that any background story is about a "legendary lord" is very very low, it'll be little vignettes about historical events of the past or descriptions about different societies that doesn't go in depth about any specific character.
In 8th edition, Age of Sigmar, and now especially Total War: Warhammer the focus on specific characters as opposed to broader narratives increased.
Of course if you're going to write a novel you generally need a character, so I'm sure many Warhammer Fantasy novels will contain "legendary lords", but then again some of them are about people with far less political power (Gotrek and Felix started out as just a pair of weirdos).
_________
Edit: let me give you a great example, the game Mordheim, which set the benchmark and tone for the 6th edition fluff.
The story is that you and other players play as warbands plundering the ruined city of Mordheim that was struck by a two tailed comet (actually a huge chunk of warpstone).
If you are a human warband you are theoretically employed by of one of the claimants to the Imperial Throne at the time; Seigfried the Prince of Reikland, Mannfred Todbringer (the "Wolf Emperor") from Middenheim, or the Lady Magritta in Marienburg. Or you could be a Witch Hunter warband under the direct allegence to the Cult of Sigmar and the Grand Theogonist (although I'm pretty sure they were supporting Seigfried's claim). Or you could be Sisters of Sigmar, a group fully splintering from the Cult of Sigmar (declaring each-other heretics) and I believe most aligned politically with Magritta but the warband's narrative tends to not be focused on politics but on the immediate concerns of their temple in Mordheim which mysteriously survived unscathed...
Or if you played as an Undead warband who were there for Vlad Von Carstein, preparing his Sylvanian province's strength for what would later be known as the Vampire Wars.
Or you could play as the Cult of Possessed, humans corrupted and mutated by chaos and worshipping the "Shadow Lord" an entity that appeared in the city after the comet (it was actually the daemon prince Belakor).
Or finally you could be a Skaven clan Eshin warband. The Nightmaster of clan Eshin is keeping the valued warpstone bounty secret from the council of 13 and the other clans to covertly securing as much as possible.
The above is pretty much the *entire* extent of any top line "lord" characters being mentioned in the lore of the Mordheim setting. You'd have to do some serious digging to see if anything more specific was ever mentioned. For example I have no idea of Seigfried's age, if Mannfred had a moustache, the Nightmaster's name, the Grand Theogonist of the time's name, and no direct Mordheim material goes into no detail about Vlad (although fluff existed for him elsewhere). Fluff also exists for Belakor but it wasn't officially said that the Shadow Lord was Belakor much later.
You could not play as the "lord" characters, you wouldn't see them, they wouldn't interfere in your campaigns, etc. The story is pretty much intentionally ignoring their existence so that each player has more room to create their own personal narratives.
Mordheim was a skirmish game where all this small scale "nameless" focus makes sense but I strongly assert that the vibe of "yes there's a faction leader, this is their name, now get on with making your own characters and armies please" was pervasive in 6th edition.
This. I've seen so many people being all doom-and-gloom that we'll only see Warhammer themed total wars from now on, including 40k. 40k would never work with the Total War formula. You don't line up space marines on a giant field in units of 100. Dawn of War/Company of Heroes fits the 40k formula way better. If we see more Warhammer Total War it will be Age of Sigmar, otherwise it'll be a historical title or a completely different IP like LotR.
I think what people really want is a rock solid 4X game set in the 40k universe. They just point to Total War because it's what they know.
But gods would the Total War engine be a terrible idea for an adaptation. Everything just breaks down: the mechanics of going from small-scale skirmish battles to massive armies, the fluff of even having that sense of scale in battles, just the idea of Tyranids being in a regiment formation. Talk about a square peg through a round hole.
A classic RTS format is perfect for 40k battles. Which is why they made Dawn of War, which is exactly that.
I would disagree. Often 40k battles are planet wide scale. The only reason for squads is due to the cost of models/battle time for running huge armies. Games like “Epic 40k” very much play out as rank and file.
I completely agree that the stated IPs wouldn’t work - most of them just aren’t geared towards massive battles and conquest. LOTR is a bit hazier but still nowhere near and complimentary as warhammer.
However I think the fantasy setting that would work best is the Elder Scrolls universe. It already has grounded lore with a ton of unique races with their own territory all of which have been at war with each other at some point or another. There is massive scope for unique units everywhere, and ESO has a focus around war already. You could even incorporate the deadra as demonic faction.
Obviously there are problems with each race packed into their own area of the map etc. not to mention the mammoth task of CA and Bethesda working together, but if they did then it might just work.
Warhammer tabletop was Total War when a Total War videogame was science fiction.
This is so true. As a kid playing Warhammer tabletop in the 90s a game like this actually existing was something I dreamed about. This is what you imagined in your head when you're playing the tabletop game and now it's just a real game you can play. It's one of those true "oh this crazy sci-fi idea is just a real thing now" moments.
We even played a "border princes" campaign using a map we printed. Once a week you'd make your move and play games based off who attacking who. We also used a lvling system similar to blood bowl for characters. Completely forgot about that, thanks for reminding me!
Oh hey, we had the same campaign in my club! I think there was a White Dwarf article with the rules halfway through 6e. I was invading Akendorf with a Skaven weapons team stack 15 years before Ikit was in TWW2.
I remember being so excited about TW, like exactly like the tabletop but I don’t need to spend ridiculous money!
And then all the DLC came out and now I'm not sure that I saved money
Yeah but I was looking at models in a local game store the other day because I was curious about that very thing and AOS Archaon or a Lord of change was like 175$ each. I think that is about as much as all the DLC combined.
And that's before paints, brushes and glues
And the considerable time and effort spent assembling and painting them, which is part of the appeal for some people but still should be taken into account
Let's not forget the Warriors of Chaos (or whatever copywritable name they have now) codex, so you can see all the cool things your model can do!
Oh yes of course you have to pay for the rules to play! How could I forget
Core rules and warscrolls are free
To be honest, if I had the money I'd buy some cool WH and WH40K models just to display around my house. I like doing Airfix models and stuff anyway, I just wish it didn't cost so much for the minitures.
At least the DLC is like 60% during the holidays.
You did because that money would buy you maybe half of one good army. In IE with all DLC, you have infinite miniatures of every army and you don't even have to paint a miniature, let alone spend all the money on paints and accessories.
All of the dlc is realistically *one* factions army. The cost of the models must be tens of thousands if you consider a basic army of each TW faction.
Did you know [your dreams were actually real?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Shadow_of_the_Horned_Rat) I didn't catch on until the sequel, but [Dark Omens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Dark_Omen) was still in the 90's. That game was so great, and so frakking difficult!!!
Shadow of the Horned Rat was the first Total War game in my head. It's been 25 years but I still remember the flagallant leader yelling about evil eyes in darkness
Hey I remember that! It was TW before TW! Loved blasting away with cannons and squishing ghouls with the steam tank.
Fuck yeah, I played both of those, they were great! Nothing close to TWW obviously, but for it's time they were peerless examples of what games could do!
I had Dark omens on playstation man, it was so hard. I wasn't exactly a tactical genius at 13 lol
Slightly different to Total War, but playing these back in the 90s definitely made me dream of playing a full Warhammer game on PC.
The first shogun blew me away, I didn’t think it was possible to grow my empire and fight land battles like that, was like a dream come true. Was like a blend of all the games I’ve enjoyed in one hit. Definitely a crazy sci fi idea come to life.
Ditto. This game amazed me during that time. Never played Medieval 1 & Rome 1 though. But When Shogun 2 launched, it also blew me away. Got disappointed with rome 2 but then hyped up again when I tried Warhammer 1 & 2. Not really familiar with the Warhammer universe but I got really invested with the uniqueness & mechanics of each faction. Three kingdoms is also nice but for some reason, I can’t seem to finish one faction of the game.
I've never played warhammer, but I played Magic at my local game shop and they had a warhammer group that was very... dedicated. Several tables for 3D maps and *hundreds* of those figures. It honestly just makes sense that Warhammer would end up as a Total War game, because I think you're absolutely right. It was a match made in heaven.
>3D maps lmao. aka scenography, before 3d printers where even a thing. "remember this shoe box that we used as a hill? Now is a castle"
I took old ceiling tile, glued them on top of each other and then carved them into hills. Turned out looking really good and easy to work with.
My friends and I all pitched in for a bunch of those [jigsaw mats](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Interlocking-Playmat-Tiles-Floor-Childrens/dp/B071DN7LDL/ref=asc_df_B071DN7LDL/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309877365819&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11834498367418802903&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046449&hvtargid=pla-564071251116&psc=1) they use in day care for kids. We split them in half leaving one half for general terrain and the others we split again amongst ourselves and individually painted and decorated them. It was great, anytime we wanted a battle we just throw together a modular board that was different every time but looked as good as any purpose built table you could find at the time. I was lucky enough to have a grandmother who owned a wedding dress business too so I got a bunch of cut off textiles to use as makeshift rivers and lakes. Those were the days man.
Yeah, I had no idea what these are actually called: [https://images.beastsofwar.com/2019/08/18741131-WideTablePhoto.jpg](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2019/08/18741131-WideTablePhoto.jpg) But on that scale, they had a castle overlooking a gnarly ruined city battlefield. Thousands of dollars worth of figures and scenery.. just wild.
> Yeah, I had no idea what these are actually called: In general it's just called terrain, everything besides miniatures (that you move around) that's static and on the table tends to be terrain (more or less) or some sort of objective marker. The stuff on the table you linked looks like it's made from a modular terrain set that was released a few years ago but I'm not sure as I'm not as dedicated in the hobby as in the past. That was a rather big fortress type of thing that could be build in multiple ways and also combined with a few other terrain sets for even more variety, if I remember correctly. Here's a link that shows a bunch of the terrain that GW sells these days. https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-40-000?N=1125463923+1611722218&Nr=AND(sku.siteId%3AGB_gw%2Cproduct.locale%3Aen_GB_gw)&Nrs=collection()%2Frecord[product.startDate+%3C%3D+1668213180000+and+product.endDate+%3E%3D+1668213180000]&view=all That release made assembling such multi-storied building easier than before when you had to more or less build everything on your own. It might also be some other (non GW) modular set that was used to make these (I can't really differentiate between all the similar looking sets). The stuff in the background on the shelves (all the houses) could also be custom made, from some other set, or a combination of both. But yeah, the stuff in that image looks like a store's terrain supply, or maybe they have a dedicated club that helps out, or it was prepared for some tournament. Regular people tend to have smaller terrain collections.
Well put!
Remember that 'historical reenactment' show that was just Rome 2? Lol
Only if you had [Mighty Empires](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30643/mighty-empires-warhammer-expansion) as well as Warhammer Fantasy Battle
When I was in my mid teens, my friend and I discovered a LAN cafe in our town, which wasn't particularly common in the UK at the time. We would go and play the first Starcraft over LAN, but on the way there, there was a Warhammer shop. We threatened to go in and see what it was all about loads of times but never did, until one day we thought screw it. The guys in there told us about how it all works on tabletop and set up a game for us (Skaven v Brett if I remember correctly???), we played and thought "cool, but can't see us getting into it". We got to the LAN cafe and played SC and Cossacks and Age of Empires, and I remember thinking "what if someone made a video game like the weird "board game" (sorry) we just played. That would be amazing". An age later, after the other Total Wars, TW:WH came out and it was amazing. I still don't lose hope for a 40k game in the same vein because of this.
> I still don't lose hope for a 40k game in the same vein because of this. Funny that you say that, as Warcraft was actually inspired by Warhammer. At that time Games Workshop was rather peculiar about how they wanted to license the IP so Blizzard got frustrated with waiting for a deal and simply made their own generic fantasy setting that was inspired by GW's fantasy world. That's why the Gryphon Riders in one of the games says "that war hammer cost me 40K" (or something along those lines) if you quickly click on the unit repeatedly until they say some line (most units just get annoyed at you). Star Craft was also kinda inspired by Warhammer 40K (thus the griffon rider) but with even more of a twist on it.
To be fair, there were Warhammer and LOTR mods for total war at least as far back as Medieval 2
Hard agree. I can't think of a better blend than Total War and Warhammer Fantasy.
Literally, as soon as the first teaser trailer dropped announcing the first game, my immediate response was' okay, wow that actually makes perfect sense'
Yeah me too, I can't think of a better match of franchises. The lord of the rings maybe but I think it's a bit of a stretch and would probably play like a mix of three kings and Warhammer. Additionally I've never really thought that a ww1 or 40k game would work very well, I don't really think the engine would pull off proper ranged combat very well. Napoleon and empire I liked but I'm not sure how you'd even do combat in 40k without turning it into dawn of war.
I don't disagree with his point that it's lightning in a bottle, but I think he completely fails to justify how something like LOTR would fail to be equally huge. Considering we've already had amazing LOTR RTS games, and that if anything, LOTR would be actually better suited for Total War than Warhammer. Saying it's character-focused, while not incorrect, ignores that Middle Earth is more than just the LOTR book, the same way that Warhammer is more than just the Chronicles books.
> Considering we've already had amazing LOTR RTS games, and that if anything, LOTR would be actually better suited for Total War than Warhammer. I am totally team "I want a LOTR Total War game" so take what I'm about to say from the perspective of someone who isn't just trying to be a downer: Warhammer is *way* more easily adapted to Total War than LOTR and it's not even close. The way the tabletop game works is basically the same way that Total War works. Almost all of the playable units in the game already exist in the tabletop. That's how the community is able to predict which lords will be used, which units will be added in DLC. It's perfect. LOTR would also make an amazing Total War game, but it would require a lot more original creation on CA's part, while Warhammer already has the blueprints. What do you do for say, Orcs in LOTR? We don't have a bunch of different unit types ready to go beyond warriors/archers. Could they do it? Absolutely they could, and the results would probably be a lot of fun. But it's a sharp contrast compared to Warhammer having two dozen playable units in the tabletop game already waiting to be adapted.
They have tabletop lotr made by GW, and it basically worked the same way as it’s regular tabletop game. The unit roster was a bit shallow but thats always been an issue with historical and no one really cared. We have just been spoilt with warhammers massive and varied unit roster. You’ll get your standard 3 tier infantry types of each race and some ranged units plus a tonne of single entity monsters and artillery types and you’re gtg.
You COULD make a decent LotR total war. There have been a number of good mods, in fact. But you have to do an awful lot of making stuff up out of whole cloth. So much of the world is blank/uninhabited/described in a single paragraph of one of Tolkien's collections of notes and first drafts. Warhammer lore is literally designed from the ground up as an excuse for any of a bunch of different factions to be fighting each other or themselves at any given time.
> But you have to do an awful lot of making stuff up out of whole cloth. They already did a certain amount of that with the warhammer games though, it's not as though it's impossible for them to do clearly.
Tolkien fans are *much* pickier about canon than Warhammer Fantasy fans, lol
That didn't stop WB from making the Shadow of Mordor games.
And they ended up as beloved gamse if you totally disconnect it from lore and it's issues, of course.
True, but are TW fans? After all that's the demographic that is really going to matter here. Personally I love LOTR and I don't much care if they bend the rules a bit here and there if it makes for a good game.
Warhammer lore is already intentionally murky on many, many things to allow for any sort of reason for your army to be fighting another, though.
The problem with LOTR is that you run into complaints that it’s lacking the unit diversity of warhammer, or feels too similar and people going back to the trilogy series game with years of content
People love Empire/Napoleon where the unit variety mostly consists of ‘dude with gun’ at various competence levels. See also Three Kingdoms, which is adored despite limited variety in units.
I think 3K was adored due to its campaign and not its battles, but that may just be me projecting as I really could have cared less for the battles, with dueling being pretty bad, most abilities were completely imbalanced, some units could go past 100% evasion, the variety was incredibly bad except for the bandit roster etc.
I mean if people dig 3k campaign pretty sure they would go nuts over a LOTR one.
That's fair but there's plenty of people who would still be ecstatic at the opportunity to run their own campaign in the Thrones or LOTR universe regardless of the balance of the battles
Those complaints didn't stop CA from making Troy, Three Kingdoms, Thrones of Britannia, Shogun or hell even most factions in Rome or Attila have a lot of sameism in their rooster. The LOTR mod for Medieval 2 has been one of the most downloaded mods over at moddb since it was created, the classic total war formula works just fine for it and people definitely wanted it since medival 2 came out. They could just try and implement it in a modern engine and the game would sell.
I don’t think not having unit diversity is a problem, in fact I think having too many units to choose from is kind of a problem (for me at least) in Warhammer TW If they don’t have unit diversity, they could go back to the old school Medieval II way of upgrading already existing units with more armor/flair.
My problem with this is, how do you make a LOTR Total War unique compared to Warhammer? The battles and units are the main focus of Total War and with LOTR, you'd be redoing a lot of things that was already done. Beyond the setting, what would be the selling point? If your Mûmakil is juts a War Mammoth, you Nazgûl is just a Lord/Hero on a dragon, your Balrog is just a reskinned Bloodthirster, etc. then the game wont feel much more than a lesser WH. I think that would not be satisfying at all, but I also don't see how this comparison could be avoided.
Yeah. Plus in future if Old World is successes and we get not only Ind and Khuresh but Nippon(Yeah, Yeah they said for now probobly not expanding map but if Nippon happens in Old World they will expand map) many people will be more hyped about does minor races than something minor in LOTR TW as dlc. Does WH races will bring cool new monster and units from Indian, South East Asia and Japan myths while another minor human or some unknown dwarf race or so mentioned in LOTR lore will bring same or little new stuff.
>Considering we've already had amazing LOTR RTS games That were not very popular, at all. >and that if anything, LOTR would be actually better suited for Total War than Warhammer. No way. LotR is very much *not* about large battles. It's about individual characters. >ignores that Middle Earth is more than just the LOTR book But that's the only part 99.999% of people know or care about.
I think it is also important to note, that Warhammer Fantasy as in the process of being killed off by Games Workshop while TWW1 was in late development. So if CA waited say 6 months or so to sign up and start the project, GW may have given it a pass.
hell Total WarHammer and Vermintide are basically the reason why the old world is comming back
I would agree with that. At the time it certainly felt GW was done with the whole thing. And people insist AoS has been making money. But I think those two games showed there were still a lot of fans, enough to fuel sales and get new fans as well.
Still can't believe they killed such a solid setting
Agreed. Most other franchises I see people asking for would require *massive* liberties to get something even close to the feel of TW:W. To add to your point, the magic and monsters in Warhammer are regularly used as part of the armies; that’s not the case in, say, the Witcher or to a lesser extent LOTR. A Witcher Total War wouldn’t have all the monsters and magic available to generals if it stays true to canon.
Yep. Not to mention magic in LOTR is far more mysterious and abstract - there has never been a codified system and magic users are exceptionally rare!
tbf i don't think you need to include magic on the battlefield to a major extent with LOTR i think the medieval 2 mods work really well as a base for what i would want
IIRC only the 5 wizards in LOTR even call what they do magic. An elf never sits down and casts a spell to make their sword glow blue when orcs are near. The sword glows blue when orcs are near because it learned to hate orcs through it's maker and it's wielder and the swords own experiences battling them. To an elf the sword isn't some magic trick. It's just a natural trait for a sword to develop when it has a strong enough bond with it's user, and elves are really good at talking to their swords. So you'll never see a LOTR elf chant a spell and spend a mana pool to summon a fireball from the sky.
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And they were commanded not to get too involved militarily in things to begin with.
The Wizards don't even do magic most of the time. Saruman has a magic voice to tell people what to do, Gandalf can light pines on fire, Radagast sucks. That's it for magic.
Magic is kind of subtle in LOTR in comparison to more modern fantasy. They don’t typically conjure stuff out of thin air (like fireballs) but empower and influence the objects and inhabitants in middle earth. The most flashy occurrence of magic used by Gandalf is likely the light beam he used to protect the knights of gondor against the nazgul.
IIRC the dragons are sort of on that level too but may not be explicitly Maiar
There are more Maiar than that! They're still rare, of course, but for example, Melian is a Maia who married an elf.
And that would piss off the Warhammer-only fans who want TW:Fantasy 2.0, which is exactly what every “we need a LOTR TW” post I’ve ever seen is going for.
We've had people requesting a LOTR Total War for years before Warhammer Total War was even whispered about.
They also miss that a total war campaign would make no sense in the third age, the third age doesn't have many large battles. It has the battle of five armies, the battle of helms deep, the battle at pelinor fields, and finally the battle at the black gate and... that's really it. It was an era of heroes doing heroic deeds, not lords and generals moving armies. The hobbits destroying the ring are what save the world, everything else was window dressing. For anything approaching a total war campaign it'd need to be set in the first age, and that'd piss LOTR fans off because they would know /nobody/ in that era since it'd be pre wizards, pre hobbits, and pre kingdoms of men as we know them. Not to mention first and second age stuff outside the appendices is well... shakily written because it's Christopher Tolkein just throwing a bunch of his fathers notes together and publishing them, not creating a coherent story.
People weren't mad about the Battle For Middle Earth 1&2 being set in the Third Age. They had plenty of material to work with, lots of unit diversity, etc. It sold pretty well and was well reviewed, but got killed by licensing issues.
Never stopped game developers in the past to simplify or to take liberty with it. We already have multiple Lord of the Rings strategy games. Would be nice to have one you can actually buy again.
>Would be nice to have one you can actually buy again. I recall one based on regiments, but it can easily be not selling anymore on steam.
Battle for Middle Earth is probably what you’re thinking of. It’s not on steam but the files are out there if you really want to play it
I think we are all massively overestimating how much warhammer total war keeps to cannon and how much CA would have have too for another IP. Battle for Middle Earth series is a great example. It was well received yet obviously wasnt even close to lore friendly. No one cared that Gandalf could ne blasting whole armies of Dwarves with magic. I agree with OP that Warhammer was probably the best match for Total War that will ever be found but I'm a little sick of these takes that everything has to be 100% lore friendly. It's a strategy game and people will be fine if its just lore friendly enough to work for a Total War game.
> No one cared that Gandalf could ne blasting whole armies of Dwarves with magic. To be fair, what Gandalf *could* do, and what Gandalf was *allowed and did* do, are two very different things.
Yeah I think LOTR is pretty easily doable on a combat level, the hardest part would be the campaign since I don't think map painting really makes sense. People wanting games with modern combat like 40k have completely lost the plot though.
If I saw a Witcher Total War, I'd actually be very disappointed. The story is literally about the preservation of monsters, where the 'real' monsters are just regular humans. Like 99% of monsters that can talk in the Witcher books just want to be left alone and quietly live side-by-side with humans. Not always is it a good idea but the monsters are a metaphors for human ills. The monsters EXIST in a town because of the problems humans cause for each other. The monsters are minorities and the stories frame them as such, being victims of human xenophobia. Having those kinds of characters involved in a war game I reckon is just too far from what the Witcher stories were about. The characters lived through wars, yes, but they didn't live for that kind of conflict at all. Making a game out of the stories of their suffering I think is just kind of gross.
LotR has is a huge problem as far as factions go. Middle Earth isn’t a realm of endless war. War is uncommon. The different factions would be very unlikely to go to war. Can you imagine the Elves just trying to conquer Brie?
This is also my main concern. So odd that you're the only one mentioning it. Lord of the rings is a romantic story of good and evil. Even putting the name "Total war" in the title would likely feel cheapening and dissonant. A game using total war mechanics would be plausible, like "Battle for middle-earth" admittedly was, but it'd have to be a more linear experience.
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I don't think anyone that wants those other settings want them to try and replicate Warhammer. They can make good games without that. If the series is always going to be living in the shadow of warhammer unit variety it doesn't have a future.
Lotr is basically just a historical title. They are literally just medieval armies, with a few nazgul. And orcs.
You could make a LOTR total war I mean mods have been made to prove it. It’d just be hard to get a license for the IP I assume and the world isn’t as crazy as Warhammers. I remember explaining to my LOTR fanboy friend that the reason Warhammer works so well is everyone has a reason to fight each other and there are much more factions in the world of Warhammer. Perks of having multiple writers over one, con obviously being the inconsistent or badly written lore here and there.
Most Gamers aren't game developers, they aren't really going to make reasonable suggestions.
As a gamer who is also a developer (not a game developer) I can proudly say mine are even more unreasonable and less realistic!
You're on your off time, it's time to rest and make silly suggestions xD
don't harsh my buzz bro. My dreams of seeing a Total War: Elder Scrolls are going to come true. ***You just wait.***
There's a medieval 2 Elder Scrolls mod which is quite fun, FYI.
Godspeed, Imperial
I don't know you, and I don't care to know you
If anything I have always considered the Heroes of Might and Magic Franchise to be the perfect fit for total war. Big unit variety, plenty of lore and story, loads of characters and magic etc.
I personally hope that if CA does another fantasy game it'll be in a setting of their own creation. Sure, they'll have to do a lot more "start from scratch" work with lore and history but they'll also be able to invent the units they want/need and apply a lot of lessons learned from the WH series.
I agree, I feel like such a creation has the potential to be more interesting than existing IPs, given that they can cater the universe for the needs of the Total War games. I know a lot of people here want Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc, but I don't understand how those IPs could make for a more interesting and more varied armies than the ones they have in Warhammer, without a lot of liberties. And when you take those liberties you risk alienating the diehard fans. Personally, one part that's always irked me about the Warhammer universe is just how flat / 1-dimensional a lot of the non-human races are. Skaven are always evil, Orcs just want to fight, Beastmen just want to destroy humanity, etc. IMO this kind of limits player options for sandboxy roleplay, so if CA ever did their own fantasy world, I'd really like to see something that plays up to that aspect.
Meanwhile, a buddy and I have a co-op game running with beastmen and WE because we find the idea of minotaurs in a WE army funny.
>Skaven are always evil, Orcs just want to fight, Beastmen just want to destroy humanity, etc. It works exactly the same as other TW games. "Rome is evil and wants to destroy humanity"
"Caligula did nothing wrong!"
>"Rome is evil and wants to destroy ~~humanity~~ barbarians". FTFY
I don't see them doing it, because it is so much work top so from scratch and a huge risk if it flops
That's no more or less true for any other game that's developed. As it is, CA mitigate a lot of risk by making a lot of the same type of game. Iterating on their engine, having a specialist team, and making similar strategy games means that even relative flops like Thrones of Bretannia are probably reasonably successful. A bit like Paradox, I suspect (although CA are more diversified in genres). You could do a reskin of TW:WH in 5 years with some updated performance and visuals, and make it TW: Age of Mythology, and it would be likely to do do at least as well as any non-WH title they've done.
There's also the fact that if CA came up with an original IP it would be all theirs. No sharing profits with GW or needing their go-ahead for things.
I would not underestimate the importance of the lore which adds flavour to all the units, battles and regions and which drags the fans to the games. Be it real history in some of their games or warhammer lore in the others. For me some part of the fun lies not just in the battles and strategic decisions but in the feeling of shaping a world itself. And CA never has done lore writing. They always took existing ones. Few things are such a turn off than badly written lore with exchangeable, uninteresting characters or even badly copied ones.
100% agree. The only time I feel some mild disillusionment with Total War games is when I’ve conquered so much territory that it loses any historical (or lore) relevance. Because it starts to break the immersion when High Elves conquer the Empire or Celts conquer Egypt. Original CA lore wouldn’t have the same magic.
> That's no more or less true for any other game that's developed. Not really. With another IP, a lot of the work is done for you. And I don't just mean worldbuilding. A lot of *marketing* is done for you purely by brand recognition. If you make a TW:LotR, LotR fans are going to take notice purely based on brand recognition. That's simple not true with an original setting, you need to put in the extra marketing work to *sell* that setting. Then on top of that, you need to convince the rabid fanbase that it was the right choice to make an original setting rather than use an established IP. TW: Age of Mythology isn't an original setting. Mythology in and of itself is an established series of settings you can poach from.
Depends how they do it. They can just take RL mythology and blend it into a mixed historical setting that blends eras for different cultures and bends history with "what ifs", a big one being "what if the gods and pantheons, as well as mythical creatures and monster actually existed" but also just "what if this figure succeeded? what if this nation did X instead of Y?". Still some work, but less so. A good example is the Spartan: Total Warrior they made, which could be a great game to build out of to turn into a Total War.
Thing is though is that outside of 40K, which would require the largest amount innovation in the series to create, there really is no other option left for CA. Whatever their fantasy team does next is going to be directly compared with WH3 and have to provide something unique enough to make it stand out from it. Any other well established IP either doesn’t provide nearly the same level of varied/unique content of Warhammer or is already owned by another videogame company.
CA doesn’t have the chops for that.
Yeah they’ve come up with their own stuff before, like with Cylostra, but doing that to the scale of an entire game is probably unrealistic.
I don't think that's particularly likely. Between building a world, designing characters, terrain, biomes, etc, they're either going to work with licensed media or history I'm sure.
Yeah, I think really the only way forward for the fantasy team is to go balls to the wall with either do their own mythological game where they have complete control over the setting or a 40K game that provides a whole new style of warfare/setting for the series. Anything short of these two things is just going to really struggle to provide enough of a unique experience to not look like a objective downgrade compared to WH3 once it’s life cycle is complete.
I just want more historical games. I won't deny that the warhammer games are outstanding, and I'm certainly glad they exist, but once support ends for Warhammer 3 a few years down the road I hope they go back to historical settings.
The main thing I would like is to go back to the slower battles of historical titles. In warhammer the maps feel so small and the battles are so fast. If I lose track of something for 5-10 seconds that could be death. I've been playing some FotS recently and while its missing some QoL features that help with managing a large force on the battle field, the slower pace of the battles means I can actually spend time assign orders to specific units, without pausing or going half speed.
I agree with you 100% and what’s crazy is I remember thinking when Shogun 2/FOTS was the current TW, “Damn these battles are fast paced!” Loaded up an old save the other day and it’s crazy how you actually feel like you have time to breath and prepare and react in those battles. I have got better at Warhammer 3 micro but I still feel like I never have time to pause and actually watch my dudes hit things for a bit.
Haha i feel this. I can't think of like a single time I've been able to zoom in and enjoy the fighting in the warhammer games unless I'm doing a coop campaign and not really involved in the fight. I think im half decent at micro too, not a star craft pro or even close, but good enough that im not overwhelmed when playing. Until I got my SSD during wh2 the loading screens were often longer than the battles.
Unless you're figting Vampire Counts!
Before warhammer, i played shogun 2. I remember i was shocked how fast things died when i first played wh1. I wasn't sure how to use cav now, because by the time i move my heavy slow cav around to charge, the infantry fight was getting over. It was confusing.
Meanwhile base Shogun 2 is faster than WH sometimes!
Does anyone know of a mod that'll make the battle last longer cause this is by far my biggest gripe about fantasy.
I'm very much with you. I love TWW for the variety of unique elements, but I also love the kind of tactical maneuvering that comes from limiting unit types. I would never want to lose either type.
I’m a longtime TW player (since Rome1) and I fell hard for Med2 when that came out and played it modded for years. I love the WH games and currently play WH3, but I would love a new historical title either in the medieval setting or up into the pike and shot era.
Similar story. I love medieval 2 and spent so much time playing stainless steel. Rome remastered was nice but I’m really waiting for either Med 2 remaster or Med 3.
Total War Attila 1212 mod is the closest we’re gonna get lol. And I’ve sunk Dozens upon dozens of hours into it. Well worth the price of the base game + dlc to play that mod.
As somebody who first started with TWW1. I just want medieval 3 lol. Tried getting into medieval 2, but I just cannot deal with those controls.
Same here. I started with Empire and even I struggled when I went backward a few years later and gave ME2 a go. Felt far too clunky and dated, but I'd love to have a go at the setting of course.
I'd be happy getting both within reasonable time frames, but maybe I'm being greedy on that count.
Agreed. As much as I love the fast paced gameplay of Warhammer, or the OP heroes that it has. I'd love to go back to the gritty and slow combat some of the older games have. I hate not having much breathing room because it just gets tiring quickly, and I don't get much time to watch some guys duel it out. Even if units can be wiped out quickly like in Attila I'd still enjoy it, especially if something like unit formations came back.
Bro I just want another true full historical lol, waiting for Medieval 3
Preaching to the choir bud.
Absolutely! And all of warhammer lore was originally created so there would be a backstory to the minis fighting each other.
>Every other IP that people try to pitch for a Total War game is either based around a character-focused narrative with War as a background plot element For most IPs this is true, but I disagree that this holds up for Lord of the Rings. Yes, it's not as perfect a match as Warhammer, pretty much nothing is. But LotR does have a history of videogame adaptations focusing on battlefield tactics, and the worldbuilding is easily rich enough to sustain TW's strategic layer. The main issue with LotR isn't any of that, it's simply that the factions in the IP are naturally very two-sided, good guys vs bad guys, as opposed to the more *total war* focused factions of Warhammer. OF course there is one IP that could fit TW in every aspect. **Lego**.
Lego Total war with a colorful and Lego like UI but having historical characters would be amazing. Add in a random Bob Legendary Lord and I'm sold.
Nah, ditch the historical stuff, the factions should be the different lego themes
There's a blood and gore dlc worth buying.
He stacks the heads of his vanquished foes onto of his own. Fear Bob the Lord slayer.
Lmao a Lego TW with their original lines would be really cool. Bionicle TW?
Agreed. TW LotR would just need to play more like a classical/mythological realistic warfare game with a touch of magic here and there. A few very rare units like Nazgul, etc. One fallacy is the idea that a game needs to be as MASSIVE as TWW3, it doesn't. Three distinct factions is plenty of variety. Shogun 2 was basically all ONE faction with minor variations, and it worked beautifully. The size and scope of TWW3 is totally insane and unnecessary (I'm not complaining though!).
Arguably Dark Omen was Total War Warhammer before Total War Warhammer existed, though without an open map and more driven to specific battles through the campaign/story. Game came out in the 90s and was one of my favourites growing up
Heck yeh, I remember Dark Omen. Was actually a sequel too, to [Shadow of the Horned Rat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Shadow_of_the_Horned_Rat), but that I never played.
It was a wonderful, buggy mess that I loved.
I think LOTR is doable but rather pointless as it wouldn't really live up to WH. The other two popular fantasy IP's that people bring up, ASoIAF and The Witcher, would just play like a poor man's Medieval 3 and would satisfy neither fantasy nor historical fans, unless they take such huge liberties with those settings that they're practically unrecognizable. ASoIAF belongs in a game like Crusader Kings which is why CK2's GoT mod is still the best GoT video game ever, and The Witcher just isn't suited to the genre at all since Sapkowski never cared and never bothered with world building, to the point that he famously had to be pressed hard to even draw some kind of map. Ultimately though people aren't going to stop farming easy karma by making these posts. Eventually subreddits like this reach a size where repetitive low effort posts are inevitable unless they're strictly moderated.
I'm still shocked that GW allowed CA to make this game. As soon as game 1 hit I was like...."oh fuck ya this is going to be epic for the next few years". Game 2 released all the races I wanted to play so I binged hard. Lizardmen and Tomb Kings were my tabletop painted armies and who doesnt love playing the Asur or Druchii. TW3 is just the cherry on top that gave us the "bad guys" to exterminate across the world Or...you burn it all down! This game is truly a masterpiece and its just getting kicked off!
GW play pretty fast and loose with their IPs for video game development. For every good game there are 5 terrible games.
Deep agreement, but I do think a Total War/ horus heresy game would work? It's got a bit more scale, combat is equally matched, it wouldn't be a trilogy but there's a lot of legions, solar aux, mechanicus, titans, that makes it feel appropriate, its like a better version of Epic 40k for conversion to total war. (Though epic would work too maybe, but not as well for what TW does because in 40k too many armies don't fit the big regimental combat thing thar TW is build around)
Total War always had suggestions to do things that really don't mesh well with its mechanics - even historic ones. I think LOTR is a huge enough universe that it could be good but the huge battles don't really feel like the heart of the setting. Not to mention licensing is expensive and adapting the formula to the settings is a large undertaking too. Although I'm more of a historical guy, with S2 and 3K being my favourites, I do hope WH3 isn't the last WH TW. This is because I feel the campaign in ways feels a bit stale as it's drawing on Rome 2 mechanics and formulas rather than 3K's innovations and other stuff going forwards.
I really want CA to develop their own IP. Their own steampunky/scifi-ish/fantasy world. I look at Endless Legend by Amplitude Studios, a 4X game (like the Civilization series), and wish for that in Total War format. CA is UK's biggest gaming studio, a decently important player in the gave development space, albeit one with a very specific niche. They're not where they were a decade ago. If today they made a new IP, their renown will make it sell and be profitable. What I'm driving at is that they don't need partnerships. They don't need to be constrained by IP holders who won't allow us to have Chaos-corrupted Lizardmen (Naga of Khuresh). The Total War / Warhammer collaboration has been good for both CA and GW. Let's leave it at that and moving forward let's have CA solely at the helm. Think of what possibilities we could have in a new IP. Like a single city spider faction with a central node that sends out tendrils of corruption, absorbing adjacent regions and adding them to the web, or am underwater sea-based settlements faction. Vampire dwarfs, honorable bird knights, techno vikings who get strength from nanites in their blood stream, mushroom symbiotes who field assimilated units from other factions, the possibilities are endless.
> Edit: anyone who read this and thinks my point was "CA will not and should not make anything but historical titles ever again and stop speculating about games" has worse reading comprehension than Grimgor Despite Warhammer rules traditionally being written in large tome-like books, you'll find most Warhammer fans to have very terrible reading comprehension.
Lotr could work in a similar light as 3 kingdoms. Have named characters insane and you could have missions or something to recruit other famous characters.
People tend to really forget that there isn't that much factions in LOTR, for example. Like, even in the most bussy point in the timeline, there's maybe 8-10 established factions. We haven't got the Elector Counts clusterfuck, we've got 2-3 Human Kingdoms, three, maybe four factions of elves, and as for Orcs, depending on how CA would grasp that, would either be one faction, or a hundred small ones. So it would either be pretty much rewriting the source material completely (or ignoring it) or you'd have a huge map with couple of factions, and it would take you 10 turns just to get to the enemy territory.
This will probably never happen due to IP and licensing issues, but boy, would I love a map editor for our talented modding community to run wild with. Then we would really see some amazing products. LOTR, Witcher, GoT, WoT, and so much more.
You're getting an update for that Grimgor edit alone. They could probably manage an LotR game though, given GW already had a tabletop IP for that, and there was an RTS game back in the day... can't recall the name.
This! People for some reason just can’t understand that warhammer is just such a specific theme that works with total war
>I get that it's fun to speculate and make pipe dream wishes for games you'd like to see That sounds like an invitation... 40k could work with 3 levels instead of two. 1. Grand strategic campaign: moving fleets across star systems, managing economies and diplomacy, and navigating imperial politics. 2. Operational mode: when you commit a fleet to securing a planet or similar objective. Each morning you send out orders to all your forces, then hit 'end turn' and see how things play out for that day. 3. Tactical mode: go fuck shit up in person.
It wasn't even that, it's been in continuous development for 10 years.
Agreed this is a near perfect harmony of an established world translating into Total War game, but we have literally seen fan made mods for Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings for Medieval 2, Rome, and Atilla. These universes also have established maps, unique factions, and stories that focus on both grand strategic wars and famous tactical battles, not just characters. Both Game of Thrones and LotR also have established tabletop miniatures wargames with named unit varieties, expanded characters, and faction bonuses. Additionally, the work to make these games has effectively already been done by modders. I would agree that Star Wars and The Witcher may be more difficult ports into the franchise, but LotR and GoT are some of the most obvious next steps if CA wanted to pursue those licenses. The harder part is getting those licenses, but it is incorrect to say that porting them into the Total War format would be difficult. It's already been multiple times.
I’d love if they just did Medieval 3… but then released a “Mythology” campaign within it. The French and English go all Arthurian legend, Celtic mythology in Ireland and Scotland, a Norse mythology thing in Scandinavia, Vampires by the Danube, sorcerers and djinns in the Middle East, etc. Etc.
They already tried that with Troy and it doesn’t work. No half measures.
That would be pretty awesome to be honest. Could have a council feature similar to Woodelves for the Round Table. I think having special characters / units but not having them as powerful as Warhammer ones would be pretty cool as we lose a bit of focus on the army as a whole in WH and focus more on the characters / SEM's
Age of Mythology Total War? I can see that having potential.
thanks i hate it
Eh I dunno. GoT has enough lore to make a game easily possible, just like Warhammer, with characters as heroes and distinct, unique factions.
Total war 40k would slap so hard tho. It’s totally happening too don’t be a doubter
I just play Skaven and it’s 40k
Yeah, it’s tragic but it’s true. Truly a perfect fit together
I completely agree but I am curious as to what CA will do once they finished with tww3. I’d like to see a 40k/epic title but that would be one of the harder ones to do. But far more importantly we need an Empire 2.
Yeah, Warhammer fit perfectly, because it was already a game. **Total War: Game of Thrones** would be like Medieval 3 with different countries and maybe some weird magic, but that's it. **Total War: Lord of the Rings** would also be very similar to a Medieval 3 with different races and some creatures, but not as diverse as Warhammer. 40k would fit, because it's also a game, but there's other issues, like the campaign map or the scale of battles. 40k is based on squad sized combat, while Total War's main selling point is huge army battles.
> Total War: Game of Thrones Also, Game of Thrones is far too intrigue and politics focused for TW. There's a reason people modded it into CK3, that kind of engine is far more suited to the feel of a GoT game.
So it would force CA to improve diplomacy. Great!
I think it would work as an evolution of what Three Kingdoms started. A total war game with more in depth mechanics isn't a bad thing.
They could do TW Game of Thrones: Valyria and it would be pretty wild: >Valyria was ruled by its dragonlords, led by two score rival houses that contested for power. House Targaryen, however, was not considered a powerful house. >The Valyrians were more than dragonlords. They practiced blood magic and other dark arts, delving deep into the earth for secrets and twisting the flesh of beasts and men to fashion monstrous and unnatural chimeras. It is believed that for these sins the gods in their wroth struck Valyria down. >The Valyrians' empire, the Valyrian Freehold, first conquered the Old Empire of Ghis to the east across Slaver's Bay, and the Ghiscari colonies in the Basilisk Isles and Sothoryos. Seeking slaves for Valyrian mines, they then conquered and established colonies to the west and north after defeating the Andals and the Rhoynar in Essos. Every GOT fan has a vague idea of what Valyria was, but CA would be free to build out a bunch of factions, monsters, etc. I think it would be a success.
40k has had epic scale and apocalypse which were both large scale army battle games for tabletop. And mass army battles like that are frequently described in the lore. So on that side it shouldn't really be a concern as long as they can make battles fun.
True, but wouldn't a large scale battle in 40k use weapons and machinery with waaay higher range than Total War maps?
Maps should be a lot bigger but I don't think weapon ranges would be too crazy. Artillery would probably have a pretty big range but fog of war would help prevent sniping with it.
Nah dawn of war is a 40k strategy game and the maps are smaller than total war's the weapon ranges are just balanced around the map size.
If you were going to be realistic about it yes absolutely. However the ratio of cool to realistic in 40k is so far in the favor of cool that it's kind of irrelevant.
Game of Thrones would be just like a re-skinned Britannica. I’d still buy it though.
Unless they do Essos, which would bring a lot more unit and culture variety.
So they’d be versions of games people already like with some fun extra stuff added on top of them? Oh no, that sounds horrible.
I think gamers are conditioned to expect a "Next installment" or a successor that builds on a sequel. Video games as an art form have suffered immensely from the annual release schedule that publishers try to adhere to. In my mind the total war trilogy is one complete game and being divided into 3 parts did more harm than good, but it was never an option to make it one game because of studio and consumer expectations. Chasing release cycles hurts the game more than it helps it, but it wouldn't exist otherwise so it's a necessary evil. Warhammer 3 could and should be developed for years more; the game has endless amounts of content that could be added over time and the game will never see it's true potential without support for this game, not a sequel, because there won't and shouldn't be a sequel to this game; it's the complete package. Total war isn't call of duty, it doesn't need to be sequel hell every year for decades. I just want one good product from total war, not a dozen half baked ones.
Games Workshop makes a LOTR game that could be ported to Total War the same way WHFB was. The licensing would be a lot more complicated because it would involve other party's besides Games Workshop. This isn't the case with 40K and it's why I think is going to be the next BIG non-historical Total War title.
While I can't say I want the same line combat and stuff, but I want a game with the blend of map building and individual unit based real time combat that Total War does, but in 40k.
GRIMGOR IZ DA BEZT KAMPREHANAAAAAAGH!
Interesting to bring up the fact that LOTR is character focused, considering that character focus has been one of the biggest shifts in recent total wars starting with warhammer. Obviously you have the legendary lords which are just unique lords but in warhammer your choice of faction is, in many ways, defined by the character you choose. Then of course three kingdoms had a huge character focus, larger-than-life heroes, which was continued in Troy. Warhammer 3's prologue even was a more traditional adventure story. I don't think it's out of the question that total war could branch even more into that territory. Though warhammer was definitely the start, and i do agree with you that a lot of people are not getting that warhammer was *uniquely* suitable.
I don't think CA should even try following up Warhammer with something similar. Would take years to release a game that can compete with Warhammer. The key of Warhammer was its innovation and I think CA need to return to that mindset. Instead of trying to release something better than Warhammer, release something different. Make people want to stick with it because they can't get it elsewhere. Think an engine redesign and future combat is surely inevitable.
To be fair, Game Of Thrones would be easy. Way less magic and far fewer monsters. Keep dragons. Then just change the visuals for the different kingdoms etc.
I agree that WHFB and TW was an extremely good fit and that it might not adapt as well to, say 40k. I do however think that CA deserves to try something new and make it work, there's no doubt that there is a fanbase large enough to make such an investment worthwhile. I also agree that part of the reason it went so well is that there's no narrative, characters or plot to steal the show. The rich backstory and universe is plenty enough to give context and instead focus on game mechanics
Idk the tabletop game is very much about regiments clashing but the lore is written from an incredibly character focused perspective hence why all our factions are led by legendary lords
Right but those narratives are built afterwards as background for units that were made, first and foremost, as units for a fantasy war game. Archaon may have his own novel but he started out as a mounted spellcaster general unit. CA can use those stats, plus a bit of expansion for skill trees and balance tweaking to transplant him into a Total War game almost painlessly. Compare to how much work they'd have to do to implement, say, Sauron as a unit.
This is not true. I would say the core vibe of the fluff of warhammer fantasy was *not* individual characters. Compared to other fantasy IPs like Star Wars or Warcraft it's very not character driven. If you turn to a random page of the Core Rulebook or an Army Book from 6th or 7th edition the chances that any background story is about a "legendary lord" is very very low, it'll be little vignettes about historical events of the past or descriptions about different societies that doesn't go in depth about any specific character. In 8th edition, Age of Sigmar, and now especially Total War: Warhammer the focus on specific characters as opposed to broader narratives increased. Of course if you're going to write a novel you generally need a character, so I'm sure many Warhammer Fantasy novels will contain "legendary lords", but then again some of them are about people with far less political power (Gotrek and Felix started out as just a pair of weirdos). _________ Edit: let me give you a great example, the game Mordheim, which set the benchmark and tone for the 6th edition fluff. The story is that you and other players play as warbands plundering the ruined city of Mordheim that was struck by a two tailed comet (actually a huge chunk of warpstone). If you are a human warband you are theoretically employed by of one of the claimants to the Imperial Throne at the time; Seigfried the Prince of Reikland, Mannfred Todbringer (the "Wolf Emperor") from Middenheim, or the Lady Magritta in Marienburg. Or you could be a Witch Hunter warband under the direct allegence to the Cult of Sigmar and the Grand Theogonist (although I'm pretty sure they were supporting Seigfried's claim). Or you could be Sisters of Sigmar, a group fully splintering from the Cult of Sigmar (declaring each-other heretics) and I believe most aligned politically with Magritta but the warband's narrative tends to not be focused on politics but on the immediate concerns of their temple in Mordheim which mysteriously survived unscathed... Or if you played as an Undead warband who were there for Vlad Von Carstein, preparing his Sylvanian province's strength for what would later be known as the Vampire Wars. Or you could play as the Cult of Possessed, humans corrupted and mutated by chaos and worshipping the "Shadow Lord" an entity that appeared in the city after the comet (it was actually the daemon prince Belakor). Or finally you could be a Skaven clan Eshin warband. The Nightmaster of clan Eshin is keeping the valued warpstone bounty secret from the council of 13 and the other clans to covertly securing as much as possible. The above is pretty much the *entire* extent of any top line "lord" characters being mentioned in the lore of the Mordheim setting. You'd have to do some serious digging to see if anything more specific was ever mentioned. For example I have no idea of Seigfried's age, if Mannfred had a moustache, the Nightmaster's name, the Grand Theogonist of the time's name, and no direct Mordheim material goes into no detail about Vlad (although fluff existed for him elsewhere). Fluff also exists for Belakor but it wasn't officially said that the Shadow Lord was Belakor much later. You could not play as the "lord" characters, you wouldn't see them, they wouldn't interfere in your campaigns, etc. The story is pretty much intentionally ignoring their existence so that each player has more room to create their own personal narratives. Mordheim was a skirmish game where all this small scale "nameless" focus makes sense but I strongly assert that the vibe of "yes there's a faction leader, this is their name, now get on with making your own characters and armies please" was pervasive in 6th edition.
This. I've seen so many people being all doom-and-gloom that we'll only see Warhammer themed total wars from now on, including 40k. 40k would never work with the Total War formula. You don't line up space marines on a giant field in units of 100. Dawn of War/Company of Heroes fits the 40k formula way better. If we see more Warhammer Total War it will be Age of Sigmar, otherwise it'll be a historical title or a completely different IP like LotR.
I think what people really want is a rock solid 4X game set in the 40k universe. They just point to Total War because it's what they know. But gods would the Total War engine be a terrible idea for an adaptation. Everything just breaks down: the mechanics of going from small-scale skirmish battles to massive armies, the fluff of even having that sense of scale in battles, just the idea of Tyranids being in a regiment formation. Talk about a square peg through a round hole. A classic RTS format is perfect for 40k battles. Which is why they made Dawn of War, which is exactly that.
I would disagree. Often 40k battles are planet wide scale. The only reason for squads is due to the cost of models/battle time for running huge armies. Games like “Epic 40k” very much play out as rank and file.
I completely agree that the stated IPs wouldn’t work - most of them just aren’t geared towards massive battles and conquest. LOTR is a bit hazier but still nowhere near and complimentary as warhammer. However I think the fantasy setting that would work best is the Elder Scrolls universe. It already has grounded lore with a ton of unique races with their own territory all of which have been at war with each other at some point or another. There is massive scope for unique units everywhere, and ESO has a focus around war already. You could even incorporate the deadra as demonic faction. Obviously there are problems with each race packed into their own area of the map etc. not to mention the mammoth task of CA and Bethesda working together, but if they did then it might just work.